Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1969-08-21, Page 19+BOJ d ICH,SIQNA1",$TAR, THURSDAY, AUMISf v+ Anyone who undertakes to' criticize American Foreign Policy over the past 25 years, inevitably leaves himself open to the charge of hindsight. But if the alleged errors of the 'past have been" continued and compounded and no lessons learnt from them, then hindsight is justified. The aspects We shall consider are: The Intervention in Vietnam; The Anti -Colonial policy and the Void it m caused�.� ._. TX—efforts �r to fill the "void; Soviet void -filling; The U.S. failure to distinguish Friend from Foe. Intervention in Vietnam Now that this war has continued for 13 years without any real sign of a conclusion, it is the opinion of many that the U.S. should never have gone in there, It could be argued for example, that their presence in. force merely served to train the North Vietnamese in the use of modern weapons. The aspect which` is .seldom mentioned seems to be the mistake made by the U.S. General Staff in thinking that conventional weapons could win a quick victory over guerilla fighters. It seems evident that some very ignorant advice was tendered by the General 'Staff, based on a ,completely misleading estimate of what such intervention would entail. True this is all 'dead mutton' now, but it behoves the rt Army to undertake an analysis p . in depth of its misconceptions. The Anti -Colonial Policy . Anti -Colonialism really began when the master Lend -Lease agreement (*1.) was signed .• between Britain and the 11.SrA. Roosevelt insisted that in return for American Aid, Britain must - agree to the elimipation of .all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce....after the war. r Cordell Hull in his Memoirs (*2.) writes: "We had .definite ideas with respect to the future of the British Colonial Empire....we felt that unless dependent peoples were • assisted toward . ultimate self-government and were given it... they would provide kernels of conflict." Thus, as a quid pro quo. for a dip into the `Arsenal of Democracy' British, colonialism was buried, with the immediate .. result ' of an across-the-board void which had somehow to be filled. U.S. Void -Filling Methods It was not the African and Asian continents in which a void existed, for Europe too, was desolated and had to be brought back to some " measure of stability. A policy appeared in the Marshall Plan, a form of give-away, which was highly successful in Europe, as witness ignore the true needs of the etc., and perhaps it is to the.. the'present state of the German majority. India is a case in point. great credit of the Third World, economy. However, in what .is Basically a backward agricultural peoples ithat so feW of them are now called the `Third. World'; "country, yet we support a susceptible to these Soviet the `wretkhed undeveloped myopic' government, imbued charms. But the Soviet leaders millions'; the dollar failed with the idea of increasing the • know what they are about. They signally, w h 11 e ' t h e steel output of the country. In a have but one object: the "do -good- ecade" of the minor way it is akin to our own creation of confusion, under, nineteen s' ties has been equally ..Provincial government which cover of which they can extend unsuccessful in stabilizing- thetries to. treat Huron Corny as their spheres 'of, influence and. ,economies of the Abenef'iting' though it was a metropolis like thus stand on all 'the oceans, countries, as well as failing to Toronto. Our brand of happiness ready to harry thetrade of the ersuad hem t..o_f_thllnk.,..¢:Jn,...__cannot necessaril be.... afted- on, .--West: ....M- -- ,._.- • -.,.. Western term's and affinities. But to the,Third World. Friend or Foe? the plaintive eyes bf Oxfam Our .concepts of progress, ofA policy which continues to posters still shame us into contributing powdered milk, while new bureaucracies create a corps of professional aid administrators. How dismally this, effort has failed in its attempts to share the riches of the wealthy 'nations with the `undeveloped millions,' is demonstrated by the . finding of the Second U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. This conference, which brought rich and poor together, concluded, that if anything, the gap between the two was increasing. Lester Pearson, with his searching insight, considers the failure to be due to what he calls "compassion fatigue." A more convincing • prober, Dr. Hans Morgenthau, thinks otherwise. Dr. Morgenthau has been adviser, as well as spur`, to moth the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department. He is Professor of Political Economy 'at Chicago University. His contention is that any correlation 043etween -' foreign aid and economic . development of the recipient nation is far less silxiple than was at first believed. He finds that foreign aid fails because of the cultural differences between 'borrower and donor; that the nations sof the Third .World refuse to exchange . their ideological independence for an alliance' with one or other of the opposing camps:, the West and the Soviet. The dozen or, more military coups in Independent Africa in the last four years, resulted from a lack of indigenous force able to form an animate society. In the result they can only contain the cohesion of their society by the chains of military rule. It is beginning to dawn on the West that, just as. you •cannot apply today, but he understood. the the ballot box across the -board East and the epitaph to .our of the Third World, even less can misused 'Aid' can best Fr — you expect them to profit from expressed.. in his words: "A fool the methods which brought lies here who tried to hustle the success to the West. The people East!" we are trying to help are still Soviet Void -Filling some centuries away from Soviet methods are . well becoming the fertile ground for known, yet we have still to find Western industrialization. We a prescription to thwart them • expect them to jump before more effectively. They believe in they can walk. Their minority massive arms, deliverfes, loans cache.. of intelligentsia, which translated into Russian products, rules, misleads us, while , we, fifth columns called `advisers' saving, of reinvestment and the worry many Americans, as well_ accumulation of wealth do not as much of the populations of exist in the Third World and their `satellites,' ' is the, they cannot be, infused by unwillingness of the United Foreign Aid. Technical expertize States to distinguish friend from and 'money ,can support foe; her unwillingness to stand economic development" which is up,. in the Parliament of Man already a going concern, but it (alias the U -.-N.) for either her cannot create development own interests, or her ideals. where the intellectual and moral This abdication stems from pre -conditions do not exist. 1965 (*3.), when.- Washington For those who argue that found itself in the 'unthinkable' foreign aid is just another facet. position of siding with Moscow of `imperialism,' the answer is, against London and Paris in the that if its purpose was solely to first Suez War. 'Thereafter the increase ' the influence of large White I louse was pleased to "Let corporations abroad; these latter Dag do it!" Later it went along would soon find means, to with U Thant in ignoring Egypt's convince Congress that what was aggression in the Yemen, as well good for the corporations was,a.'sthe genocide committed by good for the United States. By the Sudanese Arabs a ainst their the same token, Vietnam cannot negro compatriots in The south. be explained in terms of our Then, after the `impudence' of economic advantage. In short Katanga, in seeking to secede any attempt to combat communism by major aid programs is bound to fail. Many nations which have accepted dollars and/or rubles, are unwilling to sacrifice their ideological independence. In plain English, they prefer to be happy' or miserable, whichever way you read it, in their own fashion, rather ' than - in the Russian, Chinese or American way. This is another way of saying that what these countries need, is what they lost to the Roosevelt/Hull policy, that is a • benign dictatorship, 'intil such time as they attain a greater measure of world sophistication. • Dr. Morgenthau- has no elixir, no inspired recipe, other than the conviction that the remedy can come only from within and not from without, a conviction .which carries universal truth. Rudyard Kipling is "'forgotten olicy from the Congo, it turnedits back on the Ibo • nation in its struggle for freedom. A new low was reached when the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Look its seat on' the Security Council• alongside Algeria, which was notorious for its unblushing piracy against the aircraft 'harrying the late Moise 'l'shombe, the Congolese leader. The Israeli Blitzkreig of 1967 may have produced much hilarity, with stories that the `Israelis were nervous about all those Soviet tanks in- Nasser's may, until they saw there being hauled by camels. But there is no hilarity today. Soviet shipments to Nasser and Syria in the past two years amounted to at least half a billion dollars worth of military equipment, - including MiG-21's and' a thousand Soviet `advisers' to ensure the weaponry was put to good use this time. In the face of this obvious intent, on July 3rd, 1969, the U.N. Delegation to the U.N. persuaded Nepal, Pakistan,' Senegal and Gambia to censure, in the strongest terms, Israel's alleged mis-government of Jerusalem. Secretary of State William P. Rogers assures us: "Today we Ave in a more hopeful world." Yet Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, ,the man who lied to FOR YOUR FIRE INSURANCE President Kennedy about Soviet missiles in Cuba, recentty went on a `friendly peace mission' to Cairo and right after his trip, Suez fighting escalated. These then, are some of the reasons why, when the Western Sentry challenges: 'Halt! Who ewes there?-" we wonder whether the U.S.A. will answer: • "Friend" or "Foe.', References: ,1:--lie_=-Struggle- dor-kik rop.e:— Wilmot. Page, 726, Fontana edition. *2. Hull Memoirs. Page 1477-8. *3. Editorial in Barron's for 14/7/69. W. 1. Denomme FLOWER SHOP Phone ,c1A.EoRA See orM'Phone - MALCOLM MATHERS •GENERAL.INSURANCE AGENT • 46 WEST ST. 5249442 E 524- 8132 DAY OR NIGHT Agent FILM DEVELOPING LASSALINE ORCHARDS .woe for 24 -hr. PHONE 524-7772 RIB LOIN .CENTRE LOIN Canada Grade "A", Eviscerated, Frozen 4 Loin, 9 to ,11 chops per package PORK LOIN CHOPS lb7 9 si 'Centre CRut LOIN OAST or CHOPS. odd Ib f3 IN/ZURICH 14 -fl -oz tins FEATURE PRICE! Jane Porker . Reg. Retail 55c * SAVE 1Oc .PLE piE o r i f 8 24ull-oz size, Special Blend, Pekoe & 'Orange Petr NOME COOKED LEANS Wyton TOWS Sired Markt Posy Milos 'fur the Kids w w Gould sod- Falb IIS Cooked Foods 32 -fl -oz plastic btl Reg. -Price 79c — SAVE 10c 0 DANCE IN THE -ARENA FRIDAY NIGHT - "BEAN QUEEN" CONTEST SATURDA Heaters Reg. Price 69c — SAVE 6c AUGUST 23r ''ACTIVITIES BEGIN AT NOON POTATOES Duncan Hines '(16 Varieties) FEATURE PRICE .CAKE 19 -oz plugs MONSTER FIREWORKS DISPLAY AT DUSK All Prices Shown Are effective Through Satutday, August 23rdw 1069.